


A Way to Lose More Slowly

by cognomen



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Call Girl Finn, Complete, Detective Noir, Detective Poe Dameron, Ex-Cops, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Oral Sex, Violence, Voluntary Prostitution, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8302589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: Poe wades out into the sea of bodies that work in Galactic City like the flow of a tide; a rushing rapid of intelligent life  that creates eddies and whorls on the ground level, that soars in levels above in tightly controlled patterns of traffic. At this hour, it's so thick he can't see the sky in the small spaces where he might expect it.
   Galactic City never gets cold, not down here on the street. There's too much alive, too much churning activity. It's only in the high reaches of the towers and the dark underground where the chill sets in. Poe carries his coat on his shoulders, knowing he's going miles up; to the top of the Hutt-owned towers where the air is so thin you can only breath it inside the glass boxes. A Stormpilot Noir-AU that refused to remain a one-shot.  Oops.





	1. Chapter 1

Poe wades out into the sea of bodies that work in Galactic City like the flow of a tide; a rushing rapid of intelligent life that creates eddies and whorls on the ground level, that soars in levels above in tightly controlled patterns of traffic. At this hour, it's so thick he can't see the sky in the small spaces where he might expect it.

Galactic City never gets cold, not down here on the street. There's too much alive, too much churning activity. It's only in the high reaches of the towers and the dark underground where the chill sets in. Poe carries his coat on his shoulders, knowing he's going miles up; to the top of the Hutt-owned towers where the air is so thin you can only breath it inside the glass boxes.

He's heard stories that some of those places, some with ties back to the syndicates that first got their paws in as contractors to build and rebuild Galactic City, some of them have trap doors up top there. There was a debate whether you suffocated before you hit the ground - or some terminally solid thing on the way to the ground, which no one had seen in centuries on Coruscant - and Poe doesn't ever want to know a solid answer.

He does know it'll be cold up there; icicle frigid in attitude if not temperature. But he has a part of a map and the tenacity to find the rest, he thinks. His reputation depends on it.

He goes where the signs take him, a big foreboding tower that stretches up further than his eyes can see, hanging faded and tattered banners in austere colors down at street level. It's some old regalia that makes Poe wary on an instinctive level.

The door doesn't yield to his touch, and Poe sees no one else approach it as he falls back and waits, at least not down here. High above, there may be a secondary entrance, above the Soot Line where everything began to sparkle and shine, the dirty face of the city scrubbed clean to Republic standards. Of course, it was all external.

He circles the whole block it sits on, and thinks the building is stone under all that grime; or the facade is anyway. 

Something in the doors is keyed to individuals, and Poe isn't on the list yet.

"Well," he tells himself, looking up at one flapping and faded banner, trying to put his finger on what the circular symbol emblazoned in red reminds him of. "Maybe I was wrong about the Hutts."

-

It takes him a long evening and a late night in the bars before someone will even whisper _First Order_ , and then Poe knows he's wrong about what's happened to Lor San Tekka; that he's been wrong since his first assumption and that something is moving under the skin of his city. An invader, a parasite. Something insidious and dark and foul.

He hits the wall then; a name, and nothing else. He'll have to get _in_.

Poe's no lightweight, but he's sat through four bars drinking slow, and when he stumbles out past midnight onto the curb and sees that the rush and press of bodies has thinned as much as it ever has in his spinning and wavering vision he figures he'd best eat something solid, best tamp down the worst of his hangover now. It's not inexperience - he has been cruel to himself enough times in the past to keep his resolve as he steps up cautiously over the single raise into Dex's Diner.

He keeps his lean casual - Poe's not so drunk as he has been when he's made it his mission, his _job_ , but the counter keeps him steady as he bellies up to it.

"Look what the Loth-Cat dragged in," Hermione drawls, as she leans over the well-scrubbed counter. "What can I do for you, detective Dameron? I hope you're hungry, it's a quiet night for me."

He can see she's telling the truth - down the counter there's only two or three other customers.

"Bar's ain't closed yet," Poe says. "It'll pick up."

"Hey," she says brightly. "Order big anyway, just in case. You look like you've had a big dose of what greasy food fixes."

Poe guesses he has. "Caf, to start."

"What else'll it be? Sic-Six Cake maybe?" 

"What's the special?"

She leans a little further over the counter and grins at him. "Pretty special."

"I'll take that," Poe says, supposing it doesn't matter. Either the food will arrive and his hunger will wake up no matter what it is - or he'll eat the side of toast and take the rest home in a doggy bag politely before throwing it out.

"You got it," she says, making a note, and pouring him a cup of hot caf before heading off to give his order to the kitchen droids. 

Poe looks around and thinks Dex might be proud of it these days - the Diner is almost respectable in a way; an institution here in CoCo town that draws in any number of down and out patrons over the course of a day. 

"You smell like you've been taking your time this evening," his neighbor on the left observes - and Poe hadn't seen him come in. Hadn't been aware that anyone had taken the seat next to him at all. When he turns his head he sees an older fellow, flushed pink even under his warm brown skin. Poe doesn't know him, but he knows the smell of whiskey curling off him.

"You too," Poe says. "Or maybe not taking your time."

The stranger shrugs a little. "We're both looking for something, I think. As for me, I have the beginning of an answer, having followed you."

Poe goes cold under his shirt, and turns more fully to face the stranger. 

"What had you sniffing around that building earlier?" the man asks, in an airy tone as if it were a game or a philosophical topic for speculation. "A strange place for a detective to be - or, not so strange."

"What do you know about it?" Poe asks.

Any answer he might give is interrupted by the arrival of his plate of food, and Poe looks down at it and feels his stomach churn over in protest. The plate is covered in gray, pepper-flecked gravy and beneath it some larger islands swim between lumps he can't identify.

"Thanks, Hermione," Poe says, before his throat closes up fully. She flashes him a smile that suggests he might actually like whatever it was she's set in front of him, if he could stand to try it. 

When she's gone off to handle her other patrons, the stranger suggests, "Buy me a meal and I might have some answers for you."

Poe shoves the plate over, and watches the stranger tuck in eagerly.

"Are you with the Coruscant police?" the stranger asks.

"Independent," Poe says, warding off the heavy, pepper-scent by pulling down a long gulp of black coffee. It’s the only answer that applies to his current situation.

"Well, that's why you don't know better. The First Order has ties back to the old Imperials," the man tells Poe, in an undertone. "For now, they're keeping quiet about it. Buying space and silence from the officials in the city, you see."

He pauses, using his fork to section off a piece of one of the larger islands and revealing it to be a golden-brown biscuit. 

"I'm looking for somebody," Poe says. "I have reason to believe he had something to do with that building."

"Well," the stranger says, pausing to chew. "You'll get yourself killed if you keep looking too interested, and then no one will go looking for you, my friend. No one goes in who isn't invited in."

Poe's not sure he likes the sound of any of that, but he's not going to give up.

"But," the stranger reveals cheerfully, as if he hadn't just outlined a very real possibility of murder. "I know someone who came _out_."

-

He makes it to the indicated place fortified on two ryll-enhanced painkillers and four hours of sleep. Gravity feels like it's singled him out, tying on weights at his shoulders and impacting his bones, but his head is relatively clear. He hadn’t skipped his morning jog, just floated through it until his back was slick and wet, then showered up, suited up, and come back out onto the case.

This building is shorter, wedged below the soot-line between two of the 'scrapers, a space-between-spaces that usually housed the desperate for short periods of time. Once, in ages past, it had been an alleyway. With the most recent population boom these had been annexed; some well-meaning senator got tired of seeing trampled bodies in the streets and created an initiative.

The resulting project left the homeless with individual, windowless cubes to live in. Initially, they had been furnished but years had passed. Furniture had been damaged, broken, burned for warmth, sold. 

What’s left is a hollow shell. No one bothers to lock their doors - there's nothing that can't be stolen anyway, and nothing of value. No one leaves anything that could be sold for Spice. No one stays long.

Someone has spray painted SINHAVEN in red glow-paint over the door and Poe gets an idea of the transactions that happen here before he pushes the door open. Inside, the smell of sex and burning scent-sticks is overpowering. It's a low, powerful smell, sunk into the bones of the building itself. It feels like it'll be there until the Galactic City council finally tears the place down and lets atmosphere pass between the buildings again.

The paper Sinjir had written for him says he's looking for a man named Finn in a place on the third floor. The doors once had numbers on them, but now all that remains are less dirty spots on the paint. Some have replaced the numbers with written or painted-on copies. Most are blank, unmarked except for accumulated grime.

The one indicated on his paper says 2187, written in a steady hand. Big, square-ish numbers. It's a place that wants to be found. Poe shakes two more painkillers out of the small bottle in his suit pocket and swallows them dry, putting away the paper from Sinjir before he taps on the door. He wants to be alert for this.

He strikes twice with his knuckles and resists the urge to wipe his hand on his pants afterward. His whole body feels buzzing and gritty from the low level stimulant combating the hangover in his bloodstream. Poe feels on edge in here, keyed up in the narrow hallways charged with one kind of desperate energy in a way that reminds him enough of his own past that he wants answers, and he wants out.

The man that answers the door is not what Poe expects. He knows enough to be cautious, and he doesn't open the door all the way, leaning around it so that he can brace the wide panel against his shoulder as if anticipating a violent attempt to open it further. Poe can see a narrow strip of deep brown skin, big dark eyes that have a soulful quality to their intense, measuring stare, and a simple outline of shaven jaw, neatly trimmed hair, plain black clothes.

It takes him aback.

"What is it?" the man asks, guarded.

"I'm Detective Poe Dameron," Poe says, trying not to stammer. He should be smooth, should put on a cover story of some kind; he can't think of anything to offer but the truth. 

The door starts to swing closed again.

"Wait, I'm not with the police," Poe protests, but the door clicks closed, and he hears the latch slip over. Poe curses himself, and taps again with his knuckles.

"Listen, I'm looking for somebody and they've got ties to the First Order," Poe leans into the door, hoping his voice will carry through the thin material, but not to any other ears in the place. "I need your help getting into their building."

The door stays closed.

"Listen, I'm not here to bust you for being a companion," Poe continues. "I mean, that's not my business. I mean, unless someone's forcing you, and then I'd like to bust that person straight out of the city."

Poe's rambling. He sighs - he'd stuck his foot in his mouth and now he might not get anywhere with the only lead he has. He's not even sure if Finn's still in there - these places had side and back ways out; they had to, to keep up with fire code. Instead of pressing the issue further, Poe reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out his card.

"If you change your mind," he says, "or if you just want a square meal, no obligations, alright?"

It's only a small chance that Finn's even still listening, but Poe slides the card under the gap beneath the door anyway, watching it disappear into the shadow beneath. 

He backs off and hopes it might be enough.

Poe's turned away and started back down the hall when he hears the door open behind him again.

"Poe?" Finn calls, still peering cautiously out through a small gap. "You said something about a meal?"

-

Finn puts down three whole plates of food before the waitress takes pity on him and brings him two huge baskets of some variety of fried potato for him to pick at, and Poe tries, politely, not to stare.

He doesn't have to ask the question; the answer is self-evident, and the enjoyment with which Finn eats the simple diner-fare reveals a lot about him. Poe can guess the sort of background that would lead to this, both long-term and immediate. 

He spins his own coffee cup idly on the table, chin in his palm, and feels his heart sink in his chest a little as Finn looks reluctantly at what he can't eat, as if he's disappointed in himself, as if he knows he'll miss it later.

"Things haven't been going great since you left, huh?" Poe asks, without changing the relaxed position he's sitting in. The headache is starting to come back, but the hot caf helps, and he doesn't want to break the spell that's holding the both of them suspended over mistrust like two kids out on thin ice in deep water.

"No," Finn agrees, toying with a fry, and for a moment Poe thinks that's all he'll get. A couple words and a big bill - and Poe doesn't think, in this case, he'd mind.

"Who are you looking for?" Finn turns a question back on Poe like deflecting a knife in an alleyway.

"Lor San Tekka," Poe says, seeing no harm in admitting it. "I think he was trying to uncover what's going on with the First Order. To expose how it's getting covered up."

"Well, they wouldn't like that," Finn says, without looking up. "They won't like you poking around, either."

"Well, that's probably so," Poe admits. "But I'm not interested in shaking things up. I just want to get Tekka out - a woman I respect very much has asked me to look into it."

Finn looks up then. "And you'd do it, even though you know they're dangerous?"

"If I wanted a safe job, I'd go out for the Senate," Poe jokes. 

"It's not funny," Finn tells him, and real passion comes into his voice. "The First Order is very, very dangerous and you should be going the opposite way from anything they're up to as fast as you can."

"I believe you," Poe says, "but I have a job to do and I'm going to do it. It'd be less dangerous if you could walk me through how to get inside that building."

Finn looks at Poe, clear disbelief written on his features, and Poe wonders how he can press his hand - how he _should_ press his hand. There's something about Finn - about his gorgeous determination, about the suggestion of the surroundings Poe had found him in, about - _Finn_ \- that means this dances right along the line of what Poe needs professionally, and what he wants, personally.

If he makes a move on one side of the line, he might lose the other. He doesn't know if he should try making a move to the other; he has a couple of advantages, a couple of moral hitches he likes to think his ropes are tied to, creating lines he wouldn't cross. 

Poe takes a deep breath. "I'm gonna do it anyway, one way or the other. Help me out, and I'll owe you a favor. I have a few connections around-"

"Okay," Finn says, overriding any more of Poe's words. 

"Okay?" Poe asks, hoping Finn will clarify.

"I'll tell you how to get in," Finn says. 

-

Finn barely waits until Poe has closed his door before leaning into him, getting his big, broad hands into Poe's suit lapels and pushing him up against the door quickly enough that Poe's hat is knocked off, slipping down to the floor. Poe almost doesn't realize what's happening before it's too late, and a quick flare-bright guilt steals over him.

"Finn," he starts, then Finn's warm brown hand is on his cheek and so gentle that Poe feels his resolve waver in the face of his want, tipping down and faltering like a ship with a damaged wing. He could be weak, and just let this happen like he wants to and no one - not even Finn, probably - would hold it against him.

The lightning bolt of interest and arousal jabs down Poe's spine, but then he gets his hands up and presses them flat against Finn's chest to keep it from going further. It almost physically pains Poe to put a stop to this.

_I just bought this guy lunch,_ Poe thinks. _He was starving. I don't want this to be some kind of obligation thing._

"Finn," Poe repeats, clearing his throat to move the blockage in it. He thinks he sees almost as much disappointment as he feels in Finn's expression. "You don't owe me this, okay?"

Finn eases out of Poe's space, stepping away in an abashed way. Poe thinks he sees a hint of shame on his features as he leans down to get his hat. The felt feels flimsy and insubstantial in Poe's hand, cool from the floor. It hadn't been Poe's intent to embarrass Finn.

"Is it because I'm -" Finn starts, coming to a quick stop as if afraid of offending Poe by even saying it.

Poe meets his gaze and shakes his head. He gestures for Finn to proceed him deeper into the apartment.

"No, man," Poe says. "I don't care about that. I'm not one of those guys who thinks that getting touched makes someone less - well, _anything_."

He gestures at the old, overstuffed chair in his living room. Poe's apartment is pretty sparse - it's hard enough to make rent, let alone buy furniture, and he doesn't really get enough company that he needs a couch. What friends he does have are sort of a 'pile-on-the-floor' bunch, anyway.

"It's just that you don't owe me that," Poe says. "I'm not big on obligatory sex."

Finn sits in Poe's chair, dwarfing it. He sticks off at both ends, and leans his head back against the rest to peer over it and back at Poe.

For a moment, there's an uncertain silence, then Finn gives humor a shot.

"So what kind of sex _are_ you into, then?" Finn asks, eyes alert.

Poe laughs, feeling nervous energy burn off. "I guess most kinds as long as everyone's square and consenting."

Finn looks like he's tucking that fact away for later, and Poe allows a little pilot light of hope to burn on for another day. Later, when he knows Finn a little better.

"So, it's probably too much to ask if you ever even saw the guy I'm looking for? Poe tries to navigate the conversation carefully back to the reason they'd come here in the first place.

"What's he look like?" Finn asks, reasonably.

Poe digs for his displayer and shows the holocron image Leia had given him.

Finn looks with the focus of someone combing his memory, but finally shakes his head no. 

"Uh-uh," he says. "I never saw him. But a lot of stuff went on above my paygrade."

"How long have you been out?" Poe asks, allowing curiosity to pull him slightly off track. There's something dark going on in the First Order - something that Finn had seen and that Poe feels a compulsion to understand.

_Then again, who wants to go into any situation blind?_

"About three months now," Finn says. "I know I should get further away from there, but I keep thinking about how hard it was for me the first few weeks - if anyone else makes it, they should have support."

It's a noble thought, but Poe thinks Finn's still far from being in an easy place.

"Why are you in a companion house?" Poe doesn't mean to intrude, but there are a couple of ways to wind up there and he feels compelled to make sure no one's taking advantage of Finn.

"Doesn't take any skills or prior experience," Finn admits, "or any money to start up."

Poe supposes it doesn't, not with available space free in the relative privacy of the flop houses.

"But, uh," Finn looks away. "I'm not that great at it."

Poe can't think of anything appropriate to say. Finn's clearly got a lot of good qualities, he's big in the shoulders, good looking, good - at least Poe thinks - hearted.

It's a tough city to make it in, that's all.

"I don't think there's very many folks who can say they're really good at being companions of that sort," Poe says. He sits down on the floor, opposite Finn across the tiny folding table where he eats his dinners and sets his coffee in the morning. When he'd started living here, he'd made it a point to fold it up and put it away every time, to leave the space in his living room open. 

Now, he can't be bothered to even maintain that illusion of purposeful emptiness in the apartment. It’s just - empty. 

"I'm not that great of a detective, if it makes you feel any better. I don't even have an office," Poe confides. "I usually just meet clients at a coffee shop."

Finn smiles at him, as Poe calls up a map of the sector the First Order building is in - he'd tried looking for blueprints of the building, but found that none of them were public record. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep the interior out of reach.

"Alright, Detective, but I say it's a smart move to keep your clients caffeinated," Finn says, watching him. "I haven't seen the rest so I figure I'll judge for myself whether you're a good detective or not."

It's a big, wide opening for Poe. Almost an _invitation_ for him to return the offer of judging for himself whether Finn was any good at his profession. With an extreme effort of will, Poe restrains his mouth. 

"So," he says, instead of ' _how about we go get some coffee right now_ ' or ' _I consider myself a pretty good judge of talent_ '. "How do we get in?"

Finn eases off the chair and leans in close to Poe to work the controls on his displayer to expand the map of the area, and Poe tries very hard to pay attention to the directions.

-

Poe walks him home, trying to think of something to say, some way to make an offer, some offer he has to _make_ , but he can't come up with anything that doesn't feel like it wouldn't be insulting to Finn. Finn is out, trying to make it, taking his first steps into a world he's never touched before.

Instead, Poe stops outside the door; SINHAVEN seeming bright and burning in his thoughts. Accurate. He tucks his hands behind his back and says,

"Hey," then falters. Finn looks up at him, dark eyes in darkness. "I know you hardly know me from the next guy, and I don't mean to two-step all over what you're building but if you ever need help..."

"Sure," Finn says, and then stops. There's more to say, but neither of them say it. 

Instead, Poe rummages deep in the pocket of his suit jacket and produces a business card with his number on it. A half-dozen entreaties suggest themselves to him - 'call me' or 'even if you just want to chat', but he doesn't give any of them voice. He offers Finn the card, Finn takes it, and then he heads inside. The hot breath of the building blows out the spice of sex and sweat and then Sinhaven closes its mouth and Finn is gone again.

Poe's got business elsewhere. He watches the building for a long moment, as if some sign of trouble will beckon him in, before he chides himself for foolishness, and picks himself up to move on with his night. 

It's true he doesn't have an office, but Poe keeps a few caches over town - storage lockers and a couple of cheap bag-checks. He swings by one of these on the far side of town, keeping an eye out for any signs of a tail. Both Sinjir and Finn warned him that being seen poking around the building would bring attention - but he wants to move fast. He wants to keep them guessing.

He sees no sign of being followed, so Poe doubles back, ducks into one of the transport terminals. It's still busy at this hour of night, but not pulsing. The respiration of the city has slowed to a sleeping pace but has not ceased - it never would, Poe thinks. Not until the planet finally collapsed under the weight of the city.

He punches his combination into the locker, spinning the primitive wheel back and forth - a crude security system, but effective. Poe relies as much on the sheer number of lockers and the fact that the vast majority of them hold things without any value - dirty shoes, laundry, moldering snacks, correspondence between different parties. 

Inside of his own, Poe finds a folded up armored vest, a compact blaster, and the rest of his break-in kit. At times, it's come in handy - especially since he'd broken ties with the Coruscant Police force and their restrictions. He got in trouble more in the private sector, but he got to the bottom of more things without all the red tape holding him back.

He stuffs his suit coat and waistcoat into the locker, and slings on the vest, straps the blaster in under his arm, slinging the holster over his shoulders. Keeping his eyes on the other patrons in the room - no one is so much as glancing at him. The early morning hours have focused and numbed the passersby to anything conspicuous - and enough people changed in these locker rooms to render it more or less normal. One small action in a sea of living narratives, all going a different direction than his.

Poe checks his lockpicks, checks the charge on his field disruptor before tucking the illegal device deep into his pockets, and pulls on his suit coat again, leaving the waistcoat and his hat, watch and identification in the locker. It's a risky move, depending on how this goes, but if he gets captured by the First Order at least he can keep them guessing for a little while.

When he exits the station again he does so through a side door, stepping out onto a transport platform and then taking the stairs down to street level, navigating the back alleyways, twisting through the deepest dark of night in the blackest places of the city. It's still hot at the surface level, still breathing the teeming heat and steam of population out of every window.

Poe fixes his eyes on the climbing towers of the First Order 'scraper, and begins to approach it circuitously. There's a door at ground level, but no way in. Finn told him that was a box; a death trap. A waiting lure for the most doggedly curious that could be opened to admit a person, then sealed behind them before they were swallowed up at the Order's convenience. This, most likely, is what happened to Lor San Tekka in his investigation of the Order itself.

It could happen to Poe, too, if he's not careful.

The buildings around it stab skywards, with bridges arching out, skywalks connecting them for convenience to keep pedestrians off the streets and away from undesirables. Poe has to go in three buildings away, strolling casually into the big old austere office building and taking the skylink as casually as one can at three in the morning. Up here, traffic is nonexistent. Poe feels the weight of every security camera in the place, feels the pressure of his own echoing footsteps and the signs placed neatly in front of the doors he passes - _closed, re-opens at..._. 

In the skylink, he can see how dark the streets below seem, the inside of the glass box is well lit to keep the glass working like a mirror from the outside. He can see down, out, look at the spread and sprawl of the city from a height, but no one can see in. The rush-walks are not operating at this hour.

Poe can't shake a certain paranoia as he crosses the yards of boxed in and empty space. 

It feels exposed. Alone. Like the time - Poe tries to shut it out of his mind but the memory comes anyway. He'd been chasing Rey, trying to keep up with his partner before she outdistanced him, regretting every extra meal he'd ever eaten, regretting every time he'd skipped his morning jog and eaten a big bowl of oatmeal, one hand pressed to his side where the stitch was forming. His muscles seemed to be pulling shorter and shorter, her back fading away ahead.

She was chasing their suspect with all her might, and he knew he should be there to back her up, but he also knew that she'd get her man. He'd felt pride, then, watching her poetry-in-motion strides eat up ground even as he struggled to keep up. She had her eyes on the perp, but he'd lost track and then -

blaster fire had shattered the rhythm of his breath, unanchored his thoughts, unmoored him from his whole life. He hadn't realized it then, or even minutes later with Rey in his arms and blood on his hands, but in the weeks that followed, he'd known.

That life was over.

The feelings fade away - being high in the city still makes him feel nervous, like his feet are hanging out over thin air and his back has a target painted on it. Poe reaches gratefully for the door into the next building, telling himself to hurry. He wants to be out of the First Order tower again by five - and he knows that's pushing it. The grey of dawn will have seized hold by then, starting to paint the city silver instead of the black-and-gold of lighted silhouette.

Poe has to go up three floors and take a circuitous route to find the entrance to the next bridge, hidden behind a door marked 'service'. He leaves this propped open behind him for an avenue of escape. Immediately beyond is another door, with a keypad, and Poe doesn't touch it before he's sure of what he's doing. 

He clicks on the field generator to fritz and block the cameras - there aren't any obvious in the room, but he expects he's being observed. This done, he works the lock with the picker device, prying off the keypad cover to shortwire the internals, then pulls the door open, and closes it again. No alarms sound - audibly, but Poe knows one is going off, that something will have called attention down here. He carefully lets himself back out through the open door, leaving the prop in place, and runs up the five flights of stairs to the next bridge, navigating the hallways from Finn's instructions.

No sign of any lack of fitness now - Poe hasn't missed an exercise routine in the three years since he'd left the force. He takes the flights easily, and doesn't slow down before he hits the next door, blowing by a startled janitor and hoping he doesn't get the hot idea to call in the real authorities.

Or maybe that wouldn't really be so bad, if this went pear-shaped. Someone at least would be asking questions about where he went. He hits the next service door and then blows the lock on this skybridge with a shorter, piece, jamming it against the keypad and letting the pulse render the whole thing inoperable, hoping he's sent enough people looking for him downstairs that this will go unnoticed, that no signal will make it back to whatever control room monitored this whole place.

Then, Poe's in. He pulls his blaster, and runs across the skybridge full tilt, eager to get out of the open. On the other side, there's no locked door, seemingly no security system. It's just a wide open hall that ends suddenly in darkness, and Poe passes the terminator line at full tilt and into the blackness beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

The hallway doesn't get any lighter, and Poe finds himself facing the dark without even the dim glow of safety emergency lights. There's a machine hum, moving air and working parts, from the core of the building to Poe's right.

To the left, when he puts his hand out to feel for the surface of the windows that should be letting in at least some of the city light, Poe's fingers encounter a cold, tacky surface - paint?

It'd sure keep anyone from getting any images of the inside of the building without going to fairly extreme lengths.

Poe tries to remember the next step that Finn told him. He'd written them down, but there's no light here. He knows he has to go up - instead of burying their prisoners, the First Order isolated them from escape by elevation. By lifting them above the levels where access is allowed and isolating them from hope. 

Once you got too far up, even the speeders were so far below you that you wouldn't see who occupied them. Poe guesses that if all the windows are painted black on the inside, that hardly matters. He just has to go up.

_Find the stairs,_ he tells himself, even though he couldn't find his own hand in front of his face except for the fact it's tethered to his body.

_How do they get around?_ Poe wonders. He knows there are guards; knows that's what Finn was before he left. He has a vague idea - though no one's confirmed it - that none of them ever see the outside of this tower. Not without an extremely brave move to escape, like Finn had made.

_Maybe it's infra-red, maybe thermal..._ Poe speculates as he moves, feeling his way through the hallway with his senses on high alert. He could be surrounded by them and not even know it until someone flicked the lights on. Or, until they made their move.

_If I get out of here,_ Poe thinks, _I'll ask Finn about it. About the rest of him too. Maybe over coffee._

His fingers encounter a corner at last. The hallway turns right to follow the outside contour of the building. Poe knows the stairwell will be on the far opposite side from the skywalk. It's like those old castles on Yavin IV where he grew up, leading enemies through as many twists and turns as they could.

As a kid, he'd had a certain fascination - a certain _morbid_ fascination - with the way the tour guide described the process. Anybody who wanted to assault the castle had only one entrance to use, and was forced to run a gauntlet of defenses - hot tree sap and archers and dead ends that would literally kill you.

Poe, at least, has a different exit in mind. There's one skybridge on the other side, though it will spit him out into the middle of Hutt territory, and Poe doesn't have a great track record with the Hutts. 

No matter what they have in store, it will be better than this unending black. Suddenly a light comes into view ahead, rounding a corner. Poe shrinks back, pressing himself against the wall and looking frantically for the door to the stairwell.

It's ahead, about three meters - the light is pooling and spreading against the wall at the corner. Any second now, the source will come around into the hall Poe's standing int.

_I'll never make it,_ Poe thinks, looking toward the thrumming heart of the building that Finn had warned him away from. There's a door, though, _right_ there, just within reach.

Poe doesn't let himself second guess - he can hear footsteps now, and just as he sees two well armored white figures passing the corner he throws himself across the hall before they turn the light in his direction and prays the door opens inward.

Saying a quiet prayer to any-old-god-in-the-universe, Poe twists the knob, pushes the door open carefully and slips through as small an opening as he can manage, trying to keep the door from latching behind him. For the first couple seconds, the lights stay off - then something recognizes his presence and turns them on, blinding Poe in the brilliance, making his heart pound.

He can hear the guards in the hall, too, a low level of comm chatter piping into their helmets.

"Wait a minute," a voice says on the other side of the door.

Poe goes completely still, every muscle in his body as tense as if a current was passing through him. 

"What is it?" the second guard asks.

Poe hears a hollow _tump-tump-tump_ noise.

"Dunno," the first voice says again, "my helmet's on the fritz."

_The jammer!_ Poe's blood seems to coil its way down his legs, dropping down into his shoes. He holds very, very still. The thumping repeats, and Poe realizes it’s the sound of an armored glove slapping against a helmet.

"You got it?" the second guard asks. "If we get back late, Phasma will nail our asses to the wall."

"I dunno," the first guard says again. "Let's just keep going."

There's a pause, a couple of steps. Poe holds his breath until he sees the stars the windows are painted against.

"That's better. Wonder what was wrong with it?"

"Who cares. Report it and a technician will get to it. Let's just get back."

"Just because _you_ got on Phasma's bad side by pouring coffee practically on her lap, it doesn't mean..."

The voices fade away down the corridor. Poe hisses his breath out through his teeth as slowly as possible, trying not to make any noise. He feels like the stuttering hammer beats of his heart should be audible to the whole floor. The guards had been armored like they meant business, carrying big blaster rifles and a military attitude. Poe has felt some safety from his vest before, but it would be a poor delusion to try and face down those guards with only what he has. They had the will and capacity to punch through his defenses, and Poe's sure there are enough of them to make it stick, if that's what they wanted.

_What's in this place? Why does it need an army?_

Taking a deep breath, he turns to study the contents of the room he's in, trying to guess how long he has before the guards disappear around the far corner. Would they check the corridor on the far side, or change floors? Poe sweeps his gaze over the room - he's not sure what he should expect. The machine hum is louder here, a slowly pulsing groan that almost rattles Poe's bones. The room is starkly white, leaving his eyes almost snow-blind for a moment, battering the blackness out of his retinas and only slowly revealing that the room is more than a white cube.

The walls seem to extend about four feet in, then terminate, opening the room out into the core of the building. It seems to be filled with pale tubes and wires - dozens of them, unmarked and opaque. Some tremble, faintly as if liquid is moving along them, rushing to or from somewhere. 

As if compelled, Poe steps forward. He knows, instinctively, that whatever they lead to must be down at the bottom of this pale void, and he approaches with the trepidation and impeding triumph he'd felt facing a snow hill as a boy, with only a sled to save him.

It's too deep. Poe reaches the end of the floor and impacts a clear transparisteel pane, making a dull and hollow sound that reverberates in the small room.

It's so clear he can only see it afterward by the smear from his nose, the very faint reflection of his hollow-seeming eyes - only dark shadows moving over the surface.

"What-?" he asks, helplessly, voice small and dwarfed beneath the slow pulse of humming, and for a moment his breath matches the low wheeze, his heartbeat is lost just under the rhythmic thrum.

The irrational fear that the whole building is alive takes over as Poe dares the hall again, blue-white spots blotting the darkness as the door swings closed behind him again, his eyes bleached against the blackness. There's a beating heart at the bottom of that hole, and the whole building is breathing around him, some new form of pit-feeding worm that had learned to camouflage itself in this hell of a city, jaws open for the curious and slowly digesting anything inside.

Then Poe's fingers press against the door into the stairwell and foolish relief floods him, pours into his system like brandy into a tall glass, coming and coming but it never quite seems enough.

_Finn was right to run,_ Poe thinks, catching his breath in the lighted stairwell, trying to slow his heartbeat again. _There's a monster here._

-

Poe finds Lor San Tekka near the top of the tower, where Finn told him the holding cells might be. The whole building is crawling with guards this high up, all loaded with weapons and suited in white armor like an old tale or a new takeover.

He's being held in a silent, miserable cell block and Poe slides in on the heels of a pair of guards who both pause to complain of helmet malfunctions while Poe holds his breath, thinking small thoughts and praying that neither of them has the sense to take off their helmets for a real look around. Eventually they move out of sight in the dim.

The corridor here is lit, and the breath of the building is quieter here. Poe creeps along the row of cells and checks into each one, through a small hatch carved into the solid, heavy doors. The whole hall is painted the stolid gray of an institution, uniform from floor to ceiling and dull in the light. It means the shadows inside the cells are very deep indeed, but he finds Lor San Tekka at last - haggard and hanging by his wrists and ankles in one of these cells.

It is further than Poe expected to get - deeper and safer. He looks up and down the hallway, bracing himself for an alarm as he forces the lock with his picks and overrides the digital bolt mechanism with his field generator.

It takes everything he has to let the door close behind him again without trying to stop it. It clicks ominously behind him, like the closing teeth of an animal.

Lor San Tekka looks up, and for a moment there's so much fear in his expression that Poe almost panics - it reaches out and grabs the neck of his confidence and throttles it, squeezing off hope like air. 

Then confusion comes over his features instead and Poe lifts one hand demonstratively to his own mouth in a shushing motion as he creeps closer, avoiding the center of the room and line of sight from the door.

When he's close enough, Tekka whispers harshly, "who are you?"

"I'm here to get you out," Poe whispers back, sorting through his lockpick set for something more useful for the manacles. "Leia sent me."

"How did you-?" Tekka whispers, sounding guarded and desperate at the same time.

Poe wonders how long he's been down here - _up_ here? - waiting in the darkness for the monsters to come. Poe wonders how often they _had_.

"Don't worry about that now," Poe mutters. He examines the locks on Lor San Tekka's wrists and ankles - and how red and puffed the flesh beneath is. He can read the text of agony along those lines, and a high-water mark of suffering.

They are cruelly tricky locks, stubborn against his picks even though they're only primitive, physical things without any biometric requirement. He supposes they are effective enough for _this_ \- even if Tekka escaped he did not know the secrets of the building, he would either be recaptured quickly or wander forever in the darkness, falling deeper and deeper into the bowels of the place.

"I have half of a map," Poe explains as he works, more to keep his mind occupied and his hands moving, as if his mouth is a motor that drives both. "I understand you have the rest."

Tekka says nothing as Poe gets his wrist free, then the other. 

"But first, let's get you out of here," Poe murmurs, feeling more anxious the longer he has to spend in the cell. The ankle locks are simple.

"How did you get in?" Tekka whispers, as he rubs his wrists.

"Trade secret," Poe says. "I have a little bit of a history of getting into places I shouldn't be."

The ankle restraints release, and Poe feels relief when Tekka stands on his own and doesn't falter.

"Well," Tekka whispers, in a rough voice. "I hope you have a secret for getting out again."

Poe hopes that the information Finn gave him is still solid, but a tiny moment of doubt creeps in and over him. He turns back toward the door, pressing his ear to the durasteel panel and listens for sounds of patrol passing. 

"Why did they capture you?" Poe asks, quietly as they crouch in the shadows.

"I learned some things about this place," Tekka says. "Secrets that complimented some I had from a previous quest." 

Poe has no idea what he's talking about. "Leia said you had the other half of her map."

A patrol passes by, and Poe holds his breath, hoping they won't peer in the viewport, hoping that they aren't that diligent. The rash of helmet malfunctions is going to raise suspicion eventually.

"It's hidden," Tekka says. "I put it away someplace safe."

Poe suddenly understands why Tekka is still alive, why he's been held instead of killed and disposed of. Whatever he has, the First Order wants.

He thinks, with some small, dark worry about his apartment and the data displayer he'd used to work with Finn on the plan to get in.

It had been smart not to bring it, but it would have been better still to hide it somewhere. 

Poe gets the door open and leads them out, warning Tekka to stay close, hoping his disruption field generator can keep them both off the cameras long enough that they can escape, if they move fast enough.

"I never expected to get out again," Tekka says, distantly. Poe knows that an era of the old man's life has passed here, in the damp cells and consuming darkness, and that for a while, even the outside won't seem safe.

"The way I understand it," Poe mutters as they ease down the stairs. "You'll want to get off Coruscant before they know you're missing."

"Their grip is already almost as powerful as the old Empire's," Tekka agrees. "And soon they hope to make their reach as long."

"Don't tell me that," Poe says. "Tell Leia."

Tekka looks at him as if he knows better. As if he can see Poe's past written on his chest and the desire for fairness in the galaxy that used to drive him.

"There will come a time when you have to pick a side," Tekka says, gravely. "I think it's in you to pick the right one."

_Maybe a few years ago,_ Poe thinks. _Now I'm not sure I have the faith._

Pushing thoughts of Rey aside, he counts landings as they descend, keeping a tally and praying he doesn't get it wrong between the rhythm of stairs-pause-stairs. There's no room to go back and re-count and the floors aren't labeled. Just one more safety feature of this First Order labyrinth.

When they reach the correct door, Poe pushes his ear against it and listens. It's thirteen floors up from where he entered, and his mind is ahead on the Hutts, on how to deal with what they may encounter in the syndicate building once they're across the skywalk.

Beyond the door he hears only silence. He puts his hand on the latch and, then Tekka puts his hand on Poe's shoulder and leans his mouth in close to Poe's ear.

Poe has a moment where his memories align, the way Rey used to go on tip-toes and pull his shoulder down and whisper a plan into his ear - ' _you take the side entrance, I'll go in the front._ '

"If anything happens," Tekka says, his voice like the low, urgent whisper that passes between trees. "the map can be found between the stones of Senator Amidala's memorial walkway. Your part will call out-"

Poe has questions about this need to be cryptic, about why anyone wanted a map that was half complete and pointed nowhere, but before he can tell Tekka to save it for Leia, the door swings open and all hell breaks loose.

-

Later, when there's a chance - _plenty_ of chances, as Poe hangs battered and dangling in his own dark cell- to reflect on it, Poe realizes it is all a very elaborate trap. It is like the labyrinth of myth, where people went in blind, maybe glimpsed the monster from afar, and then began to feel safe.

But, having seen, they were not themselves unseen. Poe had believed - because he was not immediately seized by the guards - that he was unnoticed. But it was no dumb monster at the heart of the maze; no mere beast.

In Poe, they had seen an easier target to prise information from. 

Beyond the door, between him and the exit, a muzzled and masked monster waited. It had taken barely a heartbeat.

The door flew open and a sticky, syrupy power had seized Poe, holding him with weight and pressure like hardening duracrete. It was a power unlike any he'd felt before, an invisible fist in which Poe could squirm but not escape.

"You should have kept your curiosity in check, old man," the figure had said, without so much as wavering his hold on Poe, fighting and twisting in his squeezing grip. There'd been no question where the power came from.

Tekka drew himself up, eyes firm, as if the only possible answer to this terrifying power was unwavering bravery.

"I'll never give it to you," he told the figure.

There had been no warning, no hesitation. A red lightsaber blade sprang to life, and then Tekka had been on the floor with the masked man stepping over the wreckage of his body and the red-copper stench of blood and insides in the air, the grip on Poe's chest squeezing tighter still.

Poe can see - it's clear in front of his eyes in the unrelenting darkness, replaying again and again in his memory as if understanding _why_ would somehow ease his aching, tortured body.

Kylo Ren - the masked monster, some dark echo of the vanished Jedi Order - no longer needed Lor San Tekka. He had pried the information out of Poe's thoughts, flensing it out in agonizing layers while force was applied to the rest of his body by some mechanism Poe can't quite remember. He'd stripped it out in what felt like the white-hot caress of a brand applied over every inch of Poe's skin, under, down to the singing nerves.

As if each one was the plucked, raw string of an instrument.

Shamefully, he'd wished Kylo Ren had cut him down instead in those bare, sensitive moments, with Ren's rough touch in his thoughts and the hands of the guards on his body.

In a way, it paralleled those exposed moments after orgasm; all connection and bright sensation and the way he lay exposed, body and mind, to another intelligent being.

In his haste, Ren had been quick with Poe, believing that the victory had been complete when he learned what Lor San Tekka had given him. The rest, Poe had kept small and secret and he doesn't delude himself that when Kylo Ren comes back looking for it that he'll be able to keep it to himself.

It's Poe's ace in the hole, the small glimmer that all hope isn't lost. If he gets out of here, he's still one step ahead. If he doesn't, it may keep him alive a little longer - and Poe's not ashamed to say that he'll take any chance he can get.

Right now, he has nothing. They'd stripped Poe practically bare, taken his blaster-vest and tool kits, leaving him in his shirt sleeves as armored guards searched his pockets roughly and running a scanner over his body while he kept his sarcasm up like a shield.

None of them had responded to his needling and he's pretty sure his ribs were damaged even before they took his vest, cracked to make a point of how useless it was to try and stay strong, to feel like any defense was enough.

All Poe really wants is to curl up in a corner and nurse his agonies until he can be sure nothing permanent has been done to his body or mind, but he's as chained in as he found Tekka - wrists and ankles - and his lockpicks are long gone.

He doesn't quite remember when Kylo Ren left, when he was discarded as a prisoner into the care of the white-armored guards. Time has grown a little stretched and fuzzy, like chewing gum under the couch. It seems to matter about that much.

_Maybe I'll die here,_ Poe thinks, testing his wrists against the cuffs, trying to find a way to take some of the pressure off of his shoulders.

With an ominous shriek, the cell door swings open, revealing a guard armed with a blaster.

Poe's heart sinks. He knows that the map has been found, and that Kylo Ren considers him no longer useful. Without bothering to check, he's called back to have Poe shot. His usefulness has come to a quicker and more final end, and the smallest consolation is that at least one secret will go with him, one part of himself that he kept under the assault.

At a nod from the guard to some unseen observation area, the restraints open, dropping Poe onto his feet as the blood rushes back into his arms and he stumbles. The trooper aims the blaster at Poe precisely.

"Come with me," he says, gesturing for Poe to proceed him out of the cell. There's something faintly familiar about the voice, unplaceable. Poe's joints are a chorus of aches, all down the insides of his thighs to his knees, even his ankles feel lead-filled an heavy. The guard puts Poe in binders, and Poe sees no need to make him drag his body all the way to its final destination, so he lets it happen, walks to the end of the cell block and out of it under his own power and hopes he hasn't let Leia down too much.

His whole body hurts, a low dull throb emanating out from the raw feeling inside his head, and he feels almost disconnected from it, ready to drift away already. The guard nestles the barrel of the blaster at the base of Poe's spine, pressing it there to encourage Poe forward faster in the maze of hallways beyond the prison block.

For a moment, Poe considers resisting. _Let him splatter me all over these hard to clean surfaces._ Then, he figures he'd rather have the chance of seeking sky again than to die like a two year old kicking his heels. Something about that dire pressure makes Poe aware of how little he's really accomplished since he quit the CPD, how often he's been spinning his wheels and digging himself in as deep a hole as he could manage.

As they walk out of the darkness of the cell, Poe feels bare under the sterile blue-tinged light. Stripped to his shirtsleeves with all his tricks confiscated. He focuses on making his legs work, on not breathing so deeply he feels the stab of injured ribs. On the feeling of the gun muzzle against his body.

For a moment he thinks of Rey again, of how she'd folded when the blaster fire hit her.

"This way," the guard's voice yanks Poe out of his thoughts, and a strong, gloved hand pulls at his elbow, causing Poe to stumble sideways when they suddenly change direction.

Poe has to catch himself, the beat of his footsteps drumming a half-measure thump and he has to focus on balance, on keeping momentum from pulling him over as he winces his way through the motion. the grip at his elbow tightens, helping, steadying. With this anchor, Poe doesn't go down, but when he gets hold of the situation again he's practically nose-to-helmet with the guard.

His heart sinks a little - _a closet? why are we in a-_

Before any unsavory theories take real hold, the guard pulls off his helmet and reveals Finn's anxious features, his forehead shiny with sweat and his eyes trained on Poe as if he might fall apart, taking stock of all the hurts his captivity - how long has it been? - has inflicted on him.

Something happens in Poe's chest when he realizes Finn is here to get him out; his heart is a kite on a long line, now drifting with fatal destiny toward that set of power lines. He feels his insides catch and tangle in gratitude and relief, looping up and catching, snagging against something he can't pull away from.

"Finn," Poe breathes, and he means way more than that already.

"I'm getting you out," Finn says, reaching down to undo the binders on Poe's wrists. "I hope you can fly a speeder."

Poe's heart soars up, yanks back, caught on it's new, maddening tether and he feels the half-pained grin spreading over his features. "I can fly anything."

-

Poe feels each thundering step across the sky-bridge and out of the belly of the First Order 'scraper like it rings through his soul; he can't help but feel like there's a target on his back, like there's a big bright spot painted between his shoulders for someone to hit from half a mile away, some guided blaster bolt rocketing through space to take him down an instant before he gets to true freedom. 

It never comes. Perhaps Finn has gotten them past the security with some secret know how, or perhaps they were too fast for a response; perhaps all of that small army has emptied out of the base to scour the location that Lor San Tekka had given Poe for the map, leaving only a small skeleton crew. Whatever it was, Poe is grateful when he passes through the doors into the Hutt syndicate building, far more pleased than he should be to step foot into such dangerous territory. 

Here, the windows aren't covered over and he sees the sudden and intense light of the mid day, and almost stumbles until Finn comes up behind him and hauls him up with a grip under his bicep. 

"You okay?" Finn asks.

"What time is it?" Poe asks, passing his eyes over the living city below and feeling like he's crept out of his own tomb and back into some world where light and air exists, like an era has passed.

"You were uh," Finn is looking around, getting his bearings - of course he wouldn't know this place as well as the inside of the First Order building, so Poe tries to remember if he's ever been in here, either. Once, to interview a suspect in a theft. It was a long time ago. "You were gone for three days."

" _Three-?_ " Poe starts, then stops - he supposes that makes sense, he feels weak and beaten, and who knows how long he'd been under Kylo Ren's ministrations. Maybe he'd held out longer than it had felt like. Poe doesn't pat himself on the back just yet, even as Finn nods solemn affirmation, beginning to strip off his armor to leave it behind, dropping it in an unceremonious pile to avoid the attention it would draw.

"How do we get out of here, do you know?" Finn asks Poe, earnestly.

"We can cross out through another skywalk, or try to make it down to street level," Poe begins to suggest, but he can hear a commotion coming from behind them, and realizes that they may have attracted some attention after all. He doesn't really stop to think, instead he grabs Finn and drags him, running even as Finn kicks off the armored portion of his boots, as he leaves behind his gloves and gauntlets, and then Poe has some idea of where he's going.

_If we get out of this I'll be lucky if I don't have a death mark on my head,_ he thinks, but the idea, having formed, flowers and fruits in the same instant. 

He gets them onto the elevator, hits a button for the fifteenth floor.

"Poe, that's not ground level," Finn hisses, leaning back against the corner of the elevator to catch his breath. He's stripped down to just a pair of black combat pants and an insulative layer. Both are trim enough that Poe feels just a little distracted by the specifics of the outline of Finn's pectoral muscles. His chest is heaving a little, it's _very attractive._

"No, but there's a hangar up there. A personal one," Poe says. "Golga Besadi Fir keeps his toys in there - uh, I mean that's kind of gross sounding when you talk about a Hutt but I mean speeders. Fast ones."

"We're going to steal from Golga the Hutt?" Finn asks, bewildered. "Poe, that's-"

"The best option we have right now," Poe says, firmly. "We need to get out of here, fast. Does the First Order have speeders?"

Finn nods.

"Then we'll never get out of here on foot. Trust me, buddy," Poe says, feeling wild, his heart hammering in anticipation. It's not a great idea - in fact it borders on suicidal, but Golga has some of the fastest speeders in the city. Something to do with impressing the local females - Poe hadn't exactly made friends with the Hutt ambassador on his last trip into the tower, but he makes his living by dealing with one problem at a time.

In the hangar, Poe knocks out one guard while Finn bashes the other off his feet with the stock-end of his blaster rifle, and Poe thinks maybe Golga should spring for some better hired help if they can't even fend off two half-crazed barely armed escapees from the First Order tower - maybe they had never had to before.

Poe takes the red one, the one he's seen screaming past the consulate every so often, with a disproportionately wide back end and heavy, powerful engines needed to propel all that extra mass at beyond-legal-speeds, and then cranks the engine to blazing speed and blasts through the hangar doors with the bulk of the ship, leaving those wrecked and the speeder dented and scraped.

"Oh man," Finn says, watching scraps of metal tumble over the back of the speeder, carrying several of the surrounding sensor arrays with it down into the abyss of late afternoon traffic. "Oh _man_ , we are gonna pay for this."

Poe doesn't intend to pay one single credit on it, if he can help it. Instead he opens the throttle, careens madly down through the rushing of traffic, plunging through lanes that are moving at odds with his speeder in a madman's dive and listens to Finn yelling something between jubilation and sheer terror as his knuckles go white on the wheel and his body flattens against the seat as air pressure tries to crush him and gravity welcomes the ship down until just above street level. 

When Poe flashes the vents and yanks the speeder up again, he can hear the wail of the siren behind him and he can feel his own grinning-grimace. The speeder is open-topped, the wind slamming against his face until his mouth is dry, and his eyes feel gritty as Poe twists the speeder around on its tail and tries to lose the police - there's too much to explain, and he knows that the First Order must have a hand in there too.

He has to get back to Leia _first_.

"Hold on," he warns Finn.

"To _what_?" Finn wails, hands braced out, one on the console, and the other against the door beside him to wedge himself into his seat.

"It's a short-cut," Poe says, like that means anything. "The police will stop chasing us if it's too dangerous."

Finn's protest is wordless, as Poe threads the needle between buildings, under skywalks, drags them so close to the ground at nearly impossible angles that the sound of the siren wails behind them and he's just - _just_ feeling the first thrum of victory over all the inpouring and half-crazed sensations warring in his soul like _freedom_ and _escape_ and _FASTER_ \- when he feels the engine of the speeder judder to a halt.

"What now?" Finn wails as they begin to plunge

" _Out of gas!_ " Poe answers, outraged - didn't Golga know anything about storing speeders? The gauge reads firmly pinned below the line, indicator lights flashing and blinking warnings as Poe tries to wrestle the thing up on backup power and booster jets enough to keep them from flattening themselves against the ground.

Poe hits stop at ground level outside the junk district so hard it's as if he believed he could punch through it, teeth rattling in his head and metal squealing and crunching as the Speeder smashes itself into unrecognizable red scrap beneath them, skidding and shrieking to a stop. Poe only realizes he's laughing - maniacally, _worryingly_ \- when he realizes they're both still alive, still as unharmed as when they climbed into the speeder, and the gasping sounds for breath between are _agonizing_ , but he can't quite stop even as he doubles over, out over the edge of the speeder and onto the junk-strewn ground.

"Poe!" Finn shouts, disentangling himself and coming to stand over the laughing detective as if worried that Poe's mind has cracked. Finn looks pale and half-sick, worried about Poe and about the adrenaline-rush they'd both survived.

Poe wheezes in a helpless, stabbing breath and points to a sign protruding a little ways from their crash site. _JUNK SPEEDERS HERE._

"Huh," Finn says, wheezing it out like a man punched in the gut. He sits down in the scrap pile next to Poe's prone form, and chuckles a little, lost and helpless, and Poe feels exuberant enough- _alive, alive, alive!_ \- to reach up and get his hand into the front of Finn's sweat-damp and skin-heated shirt and pull him down until their mouths touch together, until their bodies line up just so and they're both sure they're alive.  
-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I think this will be 1 maybe 2 more chapters of about this length, as there's no real intent to get super long with this one, HOWEVER, I am about to plunge down into NaNoWriMo, so expect the next chapter sometime in December (sorry!)  
> -Thanks for the support!


	3. Chapter 3

“Uh-oh,” Finn’s voice pulls Poe up from his thought on the cab ride home. 

They’ve almost made it back to his apartment when Poe looks up at that exclamation. The red and blue flashing lights of the Coruscant police force grab his attention, surrounding his building. It’s not the worst welcome they could be getting.

“Kriff,” Poe says.

“Maybe they were caught in the act?” Finn tries, hopefully.

Poe pays the cabbie, pulled out of the cabin of the speeder by an animal instinct to protect his den. The building is a sea of activity, tenants peering curiously out of doors as the police unroll a strip of holo-tape to deny access to his apartment.

“Poe!” a familiar voice calls out to him, catching his attention - one of his neighbors, Jess.

A hand shoots into the sky from amidst the tangle of officers on-scene, and Jess follows it into view, unfolding herself from between the taller officers. 

“ _There_ you are,” she says, like an accusation. “Where have you been?”

“I was, well,” Poe says, stumbling on his words a little. “I was out on a case. Is everyone alright? What happened?”

“Well, if you’re alright,” Jess begins. “it was your apartment. A bunch of guys in plasteel armor came through. Looks like a bomb went off, so I was worried - I thought that they were after you.”

“I’m okay, Jess, thank you,” Poe assures her. 

“I called the police,” she explains. “There was a huge commotion, like they were tearing up the place.”

Poe’s sure they were. “Did they catch anybody?”

“Was it white armor?” Finn asks.

“Yeah,” Jess says. “It was white. They didn’t catch anybody.”

The idea of the police facing off with that terrifying group leaves Poe unsettled.

Jess crosses her arms over her chest. “They’re looking for-”

“Is this the owner?” an officer asks. “Mister Dameron?”

“Thanks Jess,” Poe assures her, as the officers come to collect him. “I owe you one.”

Poe doesn’t have his identification to display it, but he nods, and Jess verifies for him. “Can I get inside?”

“Chief says she wants to see you right away,” the officer says. “Come with me.” 

“Chief?” Poe says, not liking the sound of that.

A heavy tread catches his attention, pulling at some old deja-voux awareness. There’s a low, machine whirr that accompanies it.

“He means me,” a familiar voice comes from Poe’s apartment before the source appears - clad in her assistive suit from the hips down. It encases her legs and holds them upright, working them for her in a clumsy, heavy fashion that at least keeps her walking.

“Rey,” Poe realizes, suddenly swimming in his own guilt.

She gives him a long look, up and down. The sort she used to when he emerged unscathed from a dangerous situation. “It’s good to see you, partner. I thought maybe this time, your luck had run out.”

Poe supposes he has to admit it has. 

“Would you like to come inside and give a statement, detective, or should I just report you as a missing person?” Rey asks, and Poe realizes he hasn’t moved from his place beyond the police line.

“Alright,” Poe says, without moving forward. Finn impacted his back, apparently ready to get out of the exposed position in the hallway.

“Sorry,” Finn mutters as Poe gets into motion, following Rey’s heavy step through the destroyed front door and into the wreckage of his apartment.

“So, who’s this?” Rey asks as Poe runs his eyes over the scattered remains of his already pretty empty life. 

“I’m Finn ma’am,” Finn introduces himself as Poe takes in the completeness of the destruction. The insides of his chair - where Finn had so recently warned Poe about the danger of what he was getting into - now form drifts of white fluffy false snow over his well-worn carpet. The contents of his shelves are turned out.

“Finn,” Rey repeats, somewhere behind Poe. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Rey.”

“The officer in the hall called you ‘the chief’,” Finn says.

“I’m just a Detective,” Rey says. “The boys joke that I’m the next police chief.”

“‘cause you should be,” Poe says, in automatic response. A second wave of guilt washes over him for her current condition - as little as it seems to inconvenience her.

“Don’t tell that to the current chief,” she says. “He’s not ready to retire.” 

Poe picks through the damage until he finds his datatab - or what’s left of it. He wonders if they’d searched it first, and then tossed the rest of the place out of curiosity or spite.

“Anything missing?” Rey prompts. “I don’t suppose you could tell me who did this?”

“It was the First Order,” Finn says, before Poe has a chance to hold anything back.

“Those lunatics who idolize the old Empire?” Rey asks, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” Poe says, finding no sign of the memory device from his datatab. He drops the useless piece of destroyed equipment back onto the floor and looks around for anything else obviously missing. “I think they’re ready to move past idolizing and into emulating.”

“What do we do now?” Finn wonders, as watches Poe survey what’s left of his apartment.

Poe shakes his head. Everything is broken - the few printed flimsi books he had torn at the spine for no reason he can discern. “I dunno. I guess they figured out my ace in the hole pretty quick.”

“You went up against Kylo Ren,” Finn reminds, putting his hand comfortingly on Poe’s shoulder. It really does feel reassuring. “You can’t keep secrets from someone who can yank them out of your mind.”

“What?” Rey asks, incredulous.

“I was so sure,” Poe says, sitting down on the destroyed chair. A spring jabs him uncomfortably in the ass. 

“What is he talking about?” Rey demands, stomping her way in front of Poe to give him a stern look.

“The First Order has a - some kind of Jedi, I think,” Poe says. “He’s trained to read thoughts with the Force.”

Rey measures him, top to bottom, as if trying to judge his sobriety without making him stand on one foot and touch his nose.

“Can you prove this?” she asks, leaning back in the locked mobility frame and looking uncertain. Poe sees a lot of the old her, still. She’s mastered the ‘expectant detective lean’ even with her lower half encased in scaffolding that bears her up.

“Well,” Poe says, looking over the destruction and feeling faintly helpless. “What would that get me? They already destroyed everything I own.”

“It would get my foot in the door with a warrant, Dameron, you know how this works,” Rey says, her expression getting colder the longer she looks at him.

Poe shifts uncomfortably under the pressure of her stare. He doesn’t like the thought of sending her up against this - especially not with her current capabilities - _his fault_ , he reminds himself.

“Are you sure you could get anywhere with a warrant? If they have old Imperial ties, then-”

Briefly, he remembers holding her body, the way her legs splayed out insensate. The way blood - _her_ blood - had stained his uniform. 

“Maybe you’re better off not getting involved in this,” he finishes, shaking off the memories.

Rey’s expression gets even colder.

“Are you withholding evidence, detective?” she snarls.

“No,” Finn interjects suddenly, looking back and forth between them both. Poe had almost forgotten his presence. “He isn’t, ma’am. Poe, tell her what she wants to know.”

He looks desperate. Poe realizes then that Finn can’t afford to fall under the attention of the police - he’s unlicensed, not just to operate as a paid companion, but Poe doubts the First Order grunts even legally exist outside of their buildings or ships. His heart breaks a little at the idea - it meant Finn could disappear without a trace. They’ll have to fix it.

“Rey,” he says, entreating her to let it go. The look on her face makes him wonder when, exactly, they’d become strangers. “It’s not like that. It’s - the First Order is dangerous. And I think they have big connections.”

“Connections?” Rey asks, her tone icy. “What kind of conspiracy are you implying?”

“Ma’am,” Finn say. “Uh - officer?”

“Detective,” Rey corrects, gently. Poe can sense - with some rusty instinct - that she likes him.

“Detective,” Finn repeats. “I know it’s true that they have very powerful connections. Some that secretly support the cause, others that are paid or convinced to look the other way.”

“Well, I’m not one of them,” Rey says, adamant. “So stop trying to protect me from the big, scary world, the _both_ of you, and tell me what’s going on. What’s go t you looking into something so dangerous, Poe?”

For a moment, their gazes meet. The spring jabs into Poe’s ass, and they both say nothing while he tries to figure out where to go from here. He sees the old flash of earnestness in Rey’s eyes and knows that out of all the people in the dark, sooty world at street level, the only ones he truly trusts are right here in the room with him.

“Alright,” he says, giving in. “But we should go someplace where we can all sit.”

“Uh,” Finn says, carefully, “and eat, please?” 

-

Rey insists on an old cop hang out, perhaps out of some notion that the familiar surroundings will either put Poe at ease or awaken some nostalgia and compel him to share the truth of his situation with her.

Finn gives the place a once-over and either decides that he sees way too much law enforcement or that the price range is far above his ability to attain and goes quiet, pressing into the booth anxiously against Poe’s side.

“You’re Finn, right?” Rey says.

“Yes ma’am,” he offers, shyly.

“Alright, Finn. Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble,” she says, kindly.

He relaxes some, but it’s only when Poe makes an order for him, giving him a reassuring nudge that all of his anxieties seem to fade.

“So,” Rey said, around a mouthful of fries - she’d never been a delicate eater, either. “Who are you working for?”

“Senator Organa,” Poe reveals, hoping the size of the name will justify some of his caution in revealing it.

“What?” Rey says. “Really? No wonder you’re being so secretive.”

“It wasn’t all just a stubborn need to keep things to myself,” Poe answers, pushing food around on his plate.

“You’re working for a Senator?” Finn asks, around a big mouthful of the sandwich Poe had ordered for him. He sounds surprised, also.

“Does that seem so strange?” Poe asks, feeling defensive.

“Well,” Rey says. “You think she’d come to us, through official channels, first.”

“Except she has reason to believe that those channels might tie directly into what she wanted me to look into,” Poe says.

“So, she asked you to look into the First Order,” Rey prompts.

“Not exactly,” Poe says. “I was looking for a part of a map. A man named Lor San Tekka had it. His trail led me to the First Order. I got a tip about what was going on in the building I had traced him to. At first, I thought it was a Hutt Syndicate thing.”

Rey stuffs another handful of fries in her mouth, staring at him as she chews with an unspoken demand for him to continue.

“Anyway, the tip, uh,” he glanced at Finn who gives him a deeply uncertain look, and Poe amends quickly, “led me to the First Order and sure enough they had Tekka prisoner. I got to him, but -”

Rey seizes his hesitation to prompt, “Where is he now? Is he a witness I need to speak to?”

“He’s dead,” Poe reveals.

“What!” Rey hisses.

“We were trying to escape,” Poe says. “We were caught. He revealed the location of the map to me - and then Kylo Ren caught us. He killed Tekka, and took the location from me.

Poe tries to keep his words from penetrating his thoughts too deeply - to keep it facts and not memories or images, but some of it must show. Beneath the table, Finn puts a hand on his leg, down by his knee, and Poe almost jumps out of his skin.

“Poe,” Rey says. “You witnessed a - what? A murder?”

Poe pushes his food around. “You won’t find a body, I don’t think. The inside of that place, it’s...”

“Like another world, ma’am,” Finn says. “Things go in and don’t come out again.”

She looks back and forth between both of them.

“Finn rescued me,” Poe tells her. “He used to be-”

“Poe!” Finn says, looking betrayed. Poe forges on.

“He used to be one of them, but he isn’t anymore. He knows what the inside of that place is like. What goes on in there. So,I need you to help me with him.”

Rey looks Finn over. “You don’t have any papers.”

Finn looks like a tumblebunny in the headlights of a speeder, sandwich gripped in his hands and half-crushed. 

“Alright,” Rey says, gaze softening. “But because he saved you, and this had better be the only favor you ever ask me for, Dameron.”

“Believe me,” Poe says. “I know you don’t owe me anything.” 

Rey’s gaze softens some at that, some of the distance and anger that’s permeated their whole conversation receding.

Beside him, Finn shifts uncomfortably. “Sorry if this seems really stupid, but am I in trouble?”

“No,” they both reassure Finn at the same time.

After exchanging looks, Poe waves Rey on to let her explain.

“It’s a lengthy process to get papers - identification, I mean - and you’re not technically supposed to work on Coruscant without them. It’s for security - we’re the part-time seat of the Galactic Senate after all,” Rey explains.

Finn squirms a little in his seat.

“Don’t worry, Finn,” Rey tells him. “I can put in a good word. We’ll get you what you need. If Poe’s vouching for you, I doubt you have any plans to subvert the government or assassinate any senators.”

Poe catches how sharply she watches Finn for his reactions, and feels a surge of old warmth. Rey was never soft, not ever - but she was never cruel, either.

“No ma’am,” Finn says, wearing every ounce of his earnest shock on his features.

Poe wonders if that will change over the years, or if Finn will always be bad at poker.

“Besides, I’m sure Poe won’t let you starve while you wait for the system,” Rey says, knowingly.

“In case you didn’t notice,” Poe protests, mostly because it seems like he _should_ protest her implication, even if he _had_ kissed Finn less than four standard hours ago (and _liked_ it, thank you very much!) “I’m pretty down and out, too.”

“Don’t you have insurance on that rat hole of yours?” Rey demands, giving Poe a reproachful look.

“Yeah, but that’ll take a few -” Poe starts, but then stops himself. “So you’re going to call it a burglary?”

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me investigate your kidnapping?” she asks.

“No,” Poe says, thinking about his less than legal entry into the building in the first place. 

“Then yes, as a robbery,” Rey says, settling the matter. “Do you know what they were after?”

“Probably my half of the map,” Poe confesses, doubting it matters now. “It was on my machine, on the storage card. Stupid of me to leave it there, I know.”

Rey smiles suddenly, broadly, like she did when she got her way after a long case. she plunges her hand into her pocket and produces a yellow-striped evidence bag, like a magician with a tumblebunny. Inside is a slightly battered storage chip with familiar markings. 

“ _This_ storage chip?” she asks.

-

Rey promises to return it as soon as it’s processed for physical evidence, and Poe feels worry for her around his surge of hope and relief.

“It’ll be well protected,” she assures, paying for their meal. “I won’t tell anyone I don’t trust personally, and I won’t let it out of my sight. Just like old times, partner.”

Poe agrees, weakly. Since his apartment is still an active crime scene, Rey drops them off at a hotel, and Poe is grateful for the chance to rest, at least. 

Finn looks uncertain. “I should get back...”

“No way, uh-uh,” Poe refuses. “We both are safer away from any known hangouts right now, and Rey might have more questions for us, meaning we should stay where she left us.” 

“Poe,” Finn says, helplessly. “I can’t afford this.”

“It’s okay,” Poe says. “My insurance is footing the bill. I’ll get a room with two bed. Or two rooms, if you like that better. You saved my life, you’re helping me complete my case. That entitles you to some compensation.”

Finn softens some. Poe smiles at him, winningly. “If you can’t think of it as wages, think of it as a payoff. You’re a real, bona-fide contact now.”

Finn chuckles at that, and Poe’s heart does a little flip-flop over Finn’s smile.

“Yeah,” Finn says, “I like that.”

Inside, he found a half dozen wonders to explore in the lobby alone - Poe wonders how long it had taken Finn to adjust to lit spaces, or breathing without one of those helmets on. He books a nice room with two beds, and has them send a copy of the bill directly to his agency, glad that Leia had paid his per-diem and retaining fees up front.

He makes a mental note to call her with his progress in the morning, yawning his way onto the elevator with Finn in tow.

In the long silence of their ascent, Finn ventures a question.

“You kissed me earlier,” he starts, out of the blue. 

Poe feels a brief guilt. He knows he should have _asked_.

“Did you mean it?” Finn asks, surprising Poe. He’d expected a polite rebuttal, a reminder to keep things professional or a pointed request that it not happen again.

He considers his answer for only a minute before admitting, “Yeah, I did.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we make the jump from mature to explicit.

When they reach the room, the charge that’s been building between them is so heavy, Poe can feel the tingling weight sliding up and down his spine, like the heavy and comforting caress of a lover.

Poe’s hardly new to this - and he _knows_ Finn isn’t unfamiliar with the concept - or the practice - but he feels nervous. Fumbling. There’s enough time for his thoughts to work up into a choking cocktail that leaves Poe’s hands shaking enough that he fumbles the cardkey in the lock.

Finn’s hand covers his own, warm, reassuring skin-on-skin steadying Poe until the lock clicks over and the light goes green. 

“Something on your mind, detective?” Finn asks, voice low and husky.

Poe can’t help but release his nervous chuckle. “I hope you didn’t spend too long coming up with that line.”

They fall through the door together, Finn’s arms wrapping around Poe’s middle and pulling their bodies together. Finn’s just a little taller, or taller than Poe is used to - enough to press his mouth against the back of Poe’s neck with a faint push of teeth, and a hotter, softer kiss.

“Should I ask you about your interrogation techniques instead?” Finn says, sounding so pleased with himself that Poe shudders.

“Are you asking me if I’m a talented orator?” Poe wonders, covering Finn’s hands with his own. Pausing, Poe reaches back to trip the deadbolt and security latch, his thoughts more on the First Order than totally securing their privacy.

“Well,” Finn says, dragging his hands over Poe’s body slowly, over his belly and chest through his clothes. “If you’re offering...”

“Buddy, I’d give you anything,” Poe confesses. “So long as you actually want it, and this isn’t some kind of - payback or something.”

“Nope,” Finn says. “I got that message the first time. So if I want you, and you’re amenable to the idea...”

Finn let the sentence hang, feeling Poe’s body shudder in his arms. _Boy_ is he amenable.

“I was thinking about offering you a job,” Poe admits, then realizes how that sounds. “A different one. A permanent one.”

“Waiting for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, detective,” Finn prompts.

“Yes,” Poe breathes, as Finn pulls him tighter back against his chest, one of his broad palms splaying up over Poe’s neck, pressing his fingers beneath Poe’s chin. Poe tilts his head back, “-but-”

“Later,” Finn promises, and then seals their mouths together in a slightly awkward kiss. This time it’s slow and tender, with none of the urgent adrenaline-rush quality of their earlier kiss, or the guilt-laced-want of their first. It’s open and earnest, their mouths soft and yielding to each other.

They don’t bother to turn on the lights. Poe turns in Finn’s arms and lets himself be walked backwards to the bed and when Finn glances over Poe’s shoulder to gauge the distance, he laughs.

“You really did get two beds,” Finn wonders in Poe’s ear. “You’re not much of an optimist, are you?”

“I try to be a gentleman,” Poe says, reaching up to get his arms around Finn’s neck. “Besides, I said I would.”

“I was hoping if I pretended I hadn’t heard you, you wouldn’t,” Finn teases, running his hands up Poe’s back.

Poe leans up to kiss him again, and all the day’s exhaustion fades away. It’s late - on the ride to the hotel, all Poe had on his mind was sleep. But he feels like with Finn he could do anything in the world. The kiss carries on slow and sweet without burning too hot or too low. Like it could go on forever, like it _should_ go on forever, just their two bodies leaning together and vulnerable. Poe finally leans back, feeling dizzy in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

“You okay?” Finn asks, like he might be pushing _Poe_ too far. 

Poe huffs out a laugh, reaching up to trace his fingers over Finn’s cheek, feeling the way it creases with Finn’s crooked smile.

“Yeah,” Poe says. “Well, I mean, my house is trashed and I had a rough day, and I haven’t _slept_ in two days, but...”

Finn grins. “You’re going to sleep like a baby. Afterwards.”

“Now that’s a heck of a promise,” Poe says, but it’s a thrilling one. He leans up and presses one last quick kiss on Finn’s mouth, before indulging his instincts.

Poe drops to his knees and watches the way that writes an eager change on Finn’s face; bright sparks in his dark eyes, even in the moonlit dim of the room. He reaches for Finn’s belt buckle, feeling the way his suit rumples beneath his own knees and running his fingers over the rough, sturdy fabric of Finn’s pants. 

“You okay with this?” Poe asks, figuring from the bulging zipper that he probably is, but asking anyway.

“If I want you to stop, I’ll tell you to,” Finn promises, curling his hand under Poe’s chin and brushing his thumb over Poe’s lips. 

Taking Finn at his word, Poe presses his mouth against the straining zipper just for long enough to feel Finn’s forming erection shift against his mouth, for heat to travel through the thick material from one side to the other. Finn groans softly, his palm settling comfortably on top of Poe’s head.

He tugs the button free and the first few teeth of the zipper burst away from each other under the pressure, revealing the rounded bulge of Finn’s underwear, his barely clothed and expanding cock, and if Poe ever had any patience to tease he abandons it now, pulling the elasticized waist of Finn’s boxers down to lick over the head of his cock, now hard and eager. Finn curls his other hand around the base of it to steady his cock for Poe’s mouth, and Poe explores every inch of Finn’s cock with his lips and tongue while he holds onto the backs of Finn’s thighs.

The skin is velvet smooth and heated against Poe’s tongue, giving at first a taste of exertions - musk-sweat and a long day - that fades down quickly and sweetly to nothing on Poe’s tongue.

Finn groans appreciatively, as Poe slides his hands over the backs of his thighs and makes clever use of his tongue.

“Oh, Poe,” Finn says, voice strained slightly, but so soft and sweet and full of wonder that Poe wants to hear Finn say his name again a hundred times. A _thousand_.

He sucks Finn’s cock deep into his mouth then, letting the firm weight of it press his tongue flat. He’s hard himself from this - the feel of Finn’s hand on the crown of his head, the sound of Finn’s voice and the heady, bitter taste of thin precum dribbling against his tongue, coating his mouth with a taste he only likes because it’s unique to _Finn_.

He reaches down to palm himself through his pants, shifting the fabric over his forming erection to get more comfortable.

“Oh,” Finn breathes, and Poe glances up to see that Finn’s eyes are open and on him, sharp and dark. Hungry. “Can I...? Will you let me?”

It’s the sort of request that needs a verbal answer. Poe reluctantly draws off, letting Finn feel every inch of his withdrawal and swallowing a few times to clear his mouth as he sat back on his knees. 

“Yes,” Poe says. “Please.”

Finn reaches down and lifts Poe up off his knees, pulling their mouths together without reserve, into a passionate kiss that hums through Poe’s whole body. One of his braced hands reaching down to cup Poe’s hard cock through his pants, warm and confident in a way that weakens Poe’s knees.

“Lay down for me,” Finn says, a suggestion with just enough of a hint of command that Poe’s mouth goes dry and hungry.

He does, removing his shoes and then laying back over the short dimension of the bed. Finn steps out of his pants, then reaches for Poe’s, tugging them gently off over Poe’s hips as he arches upwards to ease the way. He reaches up to pull Finn’s shirt off as he settles on the bed over Poe.

Underneath, he’s gorgeous - _more_ gorgeous, Poe corrects himself when he looks up again at Finn’s focused by gentle features. He has a very kissable mouth, for example. Tender eyes. The line of his throat is poetic. 

“How d’you want this to go?” Poe asks, reaching up to put his arms around Finn’s sturdy shoulders.

“Mmm,” Finn says. He smiles, giving Poe a cheeky look that tells Poe no matter what Finn’s gone through, it hasn’t broken him or made him cruel. “For several hours? Until we’re both begging for mercy? I mean we have _options_...”

Poe laughs, leaning up to touch their noses together.

“What?” Finn asks. “You think I have too high of an opinion of myself?” 

“I’m worried you have too high an opinion of _me_ ” Poe confesses. “How will I ever keep up?”

Finn reached down, curling his hand around Poe’s cock and giving it a long, firm stroke. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand.”

Poe breathes out, charged, feeling the strength and callouses in Finn’s grip and finding both items reassuring.

“We can just keep it simple,” Finn suggests, stroking Poe slowly. “That’ll leave some mystery for the next time.”

“I like that idea,” Poe said, rocking up into Finn’s grip. He turned his mouth against Finn’s for a brief kiss and then pulled one hand away from the back of Finn’s neck and insinuated his grip between them to get ahold of Finn’s cock in turn, enjoying the way Finn sighs out as if in relief.

“Keeping it simple?” Finn asks.

“Having a next time,” Poe asserts.

“Are you asking me out?” Finn says, looking at Poe as if he were a conundrum. “I mean, you already had my dick in your mouth.” 

Poe offered Finn a sweet smile. “I would think that might increase my odds of a positive answer.”

Finn makes a disbelieving sound, then laughs. “Yeah, I’d like that - uh, not just the blowjobs, in case that wasn’t clear. The whole package.”

Poe rolls them both over and kisses Finn deeply on the mouth. “The whole package includes blowjobs.”

He lines their cocks up together for the thrill of friction. Both their hands working together, with Poe’s spit still slicking the way some. It feels both electric and grounding, a slow but steady build toward release. He can watch the way it grows and intensifies on Finn’s features this way, and Poe decides that maybe the whole package will involve as much of Finn as he can manage to explore.

“Ah,” Finn breathes a warning and Poe knows what he wants from this, so he ducks lower, taking Finn’s cock in his mouth again to tip him over. Finn gasps, gripping urgently at the back of Poe’s neck, making a satisfying sound as he cums, pouring out over Poe’s tongue and then falling back against the bed, tension running out of his body in a way that Poe can feel through the places they’re touching.

His arms curl around Poe’s shoulders and pull him up against his chest, cradling their bodies together as he tries to catch his breath. Poe’s about to make some sly remark when Finn flips them again, the covers now a half-tangled mess beneath them. He curls his fist around Poe’s cock with intent and jacks mercilessly until Poe sees stars and feels the heat of them pouring out of his belly, splashing over his skin and Finn’s.

They collapse together, wrapped up in blankets and each other, still in the darkness of the hotel room. In a few moments, the pace and puzzle of life will resume, they will get up to see to hygiene and then settle in to sleep. In the morning, worries will return. But for now, they’ve escaped that orbit and into each other’s.  
-

Rey catches him in the morning before Poe is truly ready. He surrenders the warm space against Finn’s side only reluctantly. Before he collects more of the parts of himself scattered around the room, he thinks he could stay in that space forever. 

Then his usual guarded reserve returns as Poe drinks his first cup of hotel-room caf and Rey takes in the picture presented with a detective’s attention to detail. She pointedly sits on the still-made bed with the heavy whirring of servos and a creak from the bed frame, and produces the storage device from Poe’s ruined data-tab, still in its plastic evidence bag.

“No prints, of course. And it doesn’t seem like it as accessed since it was last installed in your device,” Rey starts. “I saw your incomplete map and took advantage of my access to read your case notes.”

Poe accepts this invasion of his privacy as at least a lesser one than he’d endured with Kylo Ren. Rey is watching him for signs of outrage, but he doesn’t feel any.

“Alright,” Poe says. 

“Everything seems to check out,” she says. “I had a look at the place you suggested for the missing piece early this morning. You’re right. It’s all dug up.”

“Do you think they found the part that was there?” Poe asks. He wonders if he’ll have to let this case go. For now, anyway, he doubts he’ll forget to answer the affront if the opportunity comes up in the future.

“It’s the safer bet,” Rey says. “What do you want to do about it?’

Poe feels both gazes settle onto him, Rey’s guarded and Finn’s open and anxious. He wants to see this through, stubbornly. He wants to recover the map like Senator Organa asked him to. Not to leave a job unfinished. Finn’s expression begs Poe to leave it, and Rey’s gaze suggests temperance, that Poe should return to the letter of the law and work _with_ her rather than around her. 

“What do you suggest?” he says, eyes on Rey’s mobility frame.

“We should go after them,” Rey says. “You, me, Finn. If they have their hands in some kind of conspiracy we need to stop them - from within, and from the outside.” 

“It’ll be dangerous,” Finn warns.

“I’m not afraid of dangerous,” Rey says, fiercely. “As long as I’m not alone.”

Poe feels another pang of guilt. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Stop that,” Rey hisses. “Stop blaming yourself for not saving me, or whatever it is that’s eating you up when you look at me. I’m not less than I was before because I have a disability. the only thing that really diminished me was the loss of my competent partner and mentor.”

Poe is shocked to silence, recoiling as if struck. He forces himself to shut up and listen when the urge to defend himself rises. Rey is _right_ \- he’d taken off, he’d been the idiot. She fixes her stern gaze on him for a long time, until she’s sure it’s sunk in.

“I’m-” Poe starts.

“Apology accepted, and shut up,” Rey says, continuing. “You can work in avenues I can’t. I have access to things you don’t. If we combine our strengths - and Senator Organa’s if she’s still willing to pursue this - maybe we can bring down this giant hiding under the Republic’s bridge.”

Poe only considers for a moment. He checks with Finn before offering an answer. 

“What do you want, buddy?” Poe asks. “I know you wound up a part of this without really meaning to. If you want out...” 

“Are you kidding?” Finn asks. “You’d do it anyway, right?”

Poe has to admit he would. Finn shakes his head. 

“No way. If you’re in, I’m in,” he asserts. “Besides, I know things you can use.”

Rey accepts all that, tossing the bag with the memory device in it back to Poe. “Then it’s a deal. You should contact the Senator and bring her up to date. I’ll feel out my people, see if I can find any real links we can press on, or an idea of how widespread this is. I’ll get back in touch with you tonight. Do me a favor and try not to do anything dangerous until then.”

Poe nods. He means it.

“I’ll be trying to put my apartment back together,” he promises.

“Good,” Rey says. “It’s a mess, and you’re going to have some company.” 

With that parting jab, the servos of her device whir to life and lift her to her feet, and she sweeps from the room with authority in her heavy tread.

-

“I’m happy to help you clean up,” Finn offers later, after they’ve both had a chance to use the ‘fresher and check out of the hotel.

“I’d like that,” Poe admits. He’s wearing yesterday’s suit with creases in the knees, and he knows how they got there. “Though you don’t have to stay with me, if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“Let me try it,” Finn says. “I bet it will be better than where I have been living, and it’ll be safer for both of us.”

Poe thinks that last part sounds a little like an excuse, but he lets it slide. He can try it, too, and see. As they climb the stairs to his abused apartment, Poe hesitates. 

“So I know what you just saw between me and Rey doesn’t say a lot for me as a partner,” Poe says, hoping it’s the right time. “But what I was trying to say uh, before - last night...”

He rubbed a hand at the back of his neck, stumbling over his own words. He takes a deep breath, looking ahead rather than back at Finn. “But, uh, I could use one in my line of work, and-”

“You’re really offering?” Finn asks, and Poe risks a look to gauge his reaction now. He looks - hopeful. 

“Yeah,” Poe says, offering a smile. “I know it’s a little sudden.”

_And maybe a little weird,_ he thinks, being that they’d slept together - and were probably going to keep sleeping together. “I understand if you don’t want-”

Finn gathers Poe into his arms, unbalancing him off the stairs and against him, kissing Poe. It goes on and on, until Poe is breathless and dizzy.

“I’d love to,” Finn says.

-

End.

**Author's Note:**

> -This is the Noir fic that wouldn't be restrained by one-shot conditions  
> -The title is from the movie 'Out of the Past', from a key quote:  
>  _Jeff: "That’s not the way to win."_  
>  Kathie: "Is there a way to win?"  
> Jeff: "There’s a way to lose more slowly."  
> -I can't promise an update to this for some time but I figured I'd put it up anyway, rather than keep it under my hat (haha noir joke) while I was on vacation.


End file.
